by Tim Marquitz
“S’thlor,” the soldier answered. “Private S’thlor.”
“How many of you are there here?” Grady asked, sidling in closer. Taj resisted the urge to hiss at the old Tom for intruding, but she bit it back. She’d never interrogated anyone before, so maybe Grady knew more than she did.
“Maybe three hundred strong at this point, though probably a few less,” S’thlor answered without any hesitance. “We lost a number of our crew in the attack that left us crippled and landed us here, not to mention the attack on the shuttles.”
The alien soldier chuckled, a crooked smile stretching his lips. “That Federation bitch did us real harm, batting the Monger aside like an errant child. She left us bleeding atmosphere and lives until we were able to seal the back quarters and restore life support.”
“Federation bitch?” Taj asked.
The alien chuckled. “You haven’t heard of Queen Bethany Anne of the Federation?”
The resultant murmur and shuffle of feet made it clear they hadn’t.
“Well, be grateful you haven’t,” S’thlor said. “She makes Grand Admiral Galforin look like a wet nurse. She’s taken out more of our people in the last few cycles than any of our historical enemies combined.” S’thlor drew in a slow, deep breath. “Her and her people have expanded into space from some unknown dirtball planet said to be named Earth. They’ve brought their gift for war to the stars and pity those who stand in her way.”
Taj sat back on her heels a moment, letting her thoughts wander. This queen sounded fierce and cruel and uncompromising, but Taj had to remember who provided the information.
How much of what the alien said was truth, and how much of it was propaganda spewed by his command? Taj couldn’t know unless she pressed the alien for more information regarding the Federation and its leaders, but now was not the time.
“Okay, so if we take Captain Vort and his commander out of the fight…” she hesitated to think about killing them, “would the rest of your brethren stand down?”
“Hardly,” S’thlor answered. “As little love as they have for the captain, there is much terror for the actions of the grand admiral. You’ll have men celebrating Vort’s death, but it won’t slow down the work that needs to be done.”
“Why is that?” Lina asked, joining the questioning.
“Vort radioed home soon after we cashed here. Grand Admiral Galforin already knows the value of your planet and will let nothing stand in his way in his efforts to claim it as his own.”
“Value?” Cabe scratched at a folded ear. “What value does this dirty scrub planet have to you?”
S’thlor shook his head. “You people are clueless,” he said, letting out a quiet chuckle. “Your soil is infested with a mineral we call Toradium-42. That sparkly, silvery material you find right below the surface.”
“And?”
“And,” S’thlor replied, “it’s pure energy. It’s encapsulated in the tiniest, most compact source in the known universes, ready to be put to use with the barest of chemical adjustments. It can be prepared in days, and a handful of the stuff could power a Wyyvan superdreadnought for a cycle.” He patted the ground beside him, kicking up dust. “Imagine what a planet steeped in the stuff could do?”
Taj could, and it made her stomach roil. That was what they had been searching for, why they’d been drilling into the planet, and why they’d been so adamant about taking out the locals. The Furlorians were nothing more than an inconvenience in their quest for the mineral they could use to power their warships.
“Better still, it’s a completely stable energy source, and there has never been such an ample supply of Toradium-42 available anywhere else in the universe, to my knowledge.” The alien shook his head. “So, no, even if you kill Vort and Dard, there’s no escaping the Wyyvan machine bent upon stripping this planet bare.”
“So, your people are coming for us no matter what?” Cabe asked.
Taj heard Em and Grady sigh behind her at the alien’s nod. Lina hunkered down beside her.
“If you’ve got a way off the planet, I’d suggest you use it before Captain Vort finds it. Otherwise, it’s a matter of time until each and every one of you is hunted down and killed. He doesn’t care about you or your people, and he’ll do anything to get into the Grand Admiral’s good graces. As long as there are some of you left to make him look bad in front of the admiral, he will do everything in his power to torment and murder you.”
Taj swallowed back the bile that had risen in her throat. She’d expected the captive to be willing to speak, given the alien’s relationship to its captain, but she hadn’t expected such brutal honesty from him. It shook her, setting a chill deep within her spine, which radiated out, tingling through her extremities.
After several long moments of silence, she waved Cabe to seize the alien. “Take him somewhere and lock him up for now. Be sure he’s fed and treated well, but I don’t want anyone else in there with him without my permission, understood?”
She cast a furtive glance at Gran Em and Grady. While she certainly didn’t expect them to defy her and do anything that would put the Furlorians at risk, she knew they didn’t approve of her holding S’thlor hostage.
He had no trade value, and what little information he knew he’d probably already spewed, so that left him as little more than one more mouth to feed in the face of an enemy who clearly had no intention of leaving anytime soon.
Cabe grunted his agreement and helped the alien to his feet. The pair shuffled off, into the gloom of the tunnels. Gran Em and Grady shuffled after him. Taj sighed as she watched them go, glancing over at Lina once they disappeared.
The little engineer got to her feet and dusted her uniform off. “What do we do now?”
Taj shrugged. “I don’t know yet. We need to sit down and discuss some things. You and…” her voice trailed off as her brain shifted gears unconsciously.
Her head snapped about on her neck as though it were a swivel, peering into each and every crevice of their stone hideaway, not finding what she was looking for.
“What is it?” Lina asked, clearly catching the manic fervor of Taj’s movements.
“Torbon,” she whispered, straining to remember the last time she’d seen the Tom. “Where is Torbon?”
It was only then that Taj realized he hadn’t been with them since they’d gone to sleep the night before.
“Bloody Rowl,” She muttered, starting off down the tunnel. “Where the gack could he have gone?”
Before the sentence even cleared her lips, she already had a pretty good idea.
Chapter Twenty-One
Taj burst from the desert hatch and bolted toward town, barely allowing Cabe and Lina to keep up. Though the sun hung high in the afternoon sky, the crew ran as if it were pure darkness. Torbon hadn’t given them many options.
Taj swallowed the dust building in her throat and gnawed at the gritty sand between her teeth, but she never stopped running. Crouched low, she darted between buildings and clung to the shadows as best she could, staying as silent as she could. She had no clue what Torbon planned, but she was sure it’d be something none of them were prepared for. And that wasn’t good.
Torbon had always been the odd one out, choosing a path most Furlorians wouldn’t even think of taking even in the most mundane of situations. And while that might well be an asset in their fight against the invaders, his ideas were every bit as much a surprise to the enemy as they were to the crew.
There was no telling what he would do in his quest to rescue Jadie, but Taj was certain it would be something over the top, something that would put the crew on their heels as much as it did the aliens.
And that was dangerous.
With no idea what Torbon planned, Taj and the others could do nothing more than react and hope they ended up doing the right thing. We probably won’t, she thought as she raced toward the most obvious of Torbon’s targets, hoping to head him off before he did anything too stupid.
She felt sure they w
ouldn’t make it.
He’d had all night to plot and plan and let his mind stew and run wild. Taj knew Jadie and her rescue was his goal, but beyond that, she knew nothing else, and it bothered her. At any moment—
And right then, as if Torbon had read her thoughts, she stumbled to a halt, Lina and Cabe skittering to a stop behind her. “You feel that?” she asked.
Cabe shook his head, but Lina groaned and nodded. “The ground’s shaking.”
Cabe caught onto the feeling a moment later. “Feels like they’re drilling hard.”
“That’s not what that is.” Taj inched toward the nearest corner and glanced around, her gaze filling with the swirl of a dirt-brown cloud that threatened to engulf the eastern side of Culvert City. Cabe and Lina crept alongside her, staring over her shoulder.
“What the gack is that?” Cabe asked as the ground continued to rumble.
“If I had to guess, I’d say this is Torbon’s plan, whatever it is.”
Both Cabe and Lina grunted, frozen in place by the massive cloud that devoured the city, block by block.
“We need to get to the barns,” Taj told them, shaking them free of their lethargy as she bolted off again.
This time, there was no effort spent lurking or creeping. Instead, she ran full-out, not caring if the aliens saw her. If they had a gram of sense, they’d be indoors, dodging what it was setting the earth to trembling and the sky to swirling.
Taj was beginning to understand the scope of what Torbon had done, having experienced something similar when she was a kitten. Bloody Rowl, Torbon.
Paws scraping in the dirt, she skidded to a juddering stop alongside the last of the buildings nearest to the barns, the same one she’d used for reconnaissance when she’d first learned of the shuttle hiding within its walls.
She hoped the three of them wouldn’t trip the shuttle’s scanners as they clambered up the roof to settle in somewhere they could watch and be off the ground at the same time. As long as the interference was great enough, they could go unnoticed.
“Oh, Torbon,” Lina muttered. “What have you done?” She stared out at the pens in the distance, hand over her eyes, as the sandy storm raced ever closer. Shapes appeared in the gloom not long after, and the panicked mewling of the balborans rose to drone out nearly every other sound.
Taj gulped. “He’s started a stampede,” she mumbled, realizing how far he’d gone in order to rescue his aunt.
“How did he do that?” Cabe asked, but the answer to his question became obvious a moment later as the first of the herd careened down Main Street.
Taj shuddered and pulled back from the ledge of the shaking building, as her vision sorted the images she spotted in the street below. “Gacking ferion spiders.”
There, amidst the stampeding herd, were the telltale signs of the chest-sized, metallic spiders that infested some of the higher trees on Krawlas. The creatures skittered and climbed over the backs of the balborans, biting and stirring fear, glistening webs trailing like streamers from the horns of the oldest balborans.
“I can’t watch,” Lina said, and Taj agreed, though she found herself peeking over the ledge once more, watching as the herd of balborans hurtled past.
Alien soldiers, still clearly unsure as to what they were facing, spilled into the streets to confront the new threat. They regretted it instantly.
The muscled, meaty balborans, spurred on by terror, didn’t so much as recognize the soldiers before they plowed into them. Aliens screamed and cried as they were run down, the great beasts shattering armor and bones without deference. Both snapped as the aliens were run down.
Those with their wits about them freed their weapons and fired into the wave of creatures, and while a number of the normally passive animals stumbled and fell beneath the onslaught, there was simply too much momentum to defy. Soldiers disappeared in the brownish clouds, trampled and crushed beneath the stampeding herd.
Taj fought back the urge to cheer as she saw how much damage the herd was doing. The stampede had already taken its toll on a number of older buildings, destroying the chance for the city itself to escape more harm. A few of the buildings had been rocked apart to tumble piece by piece in the street. It was hardly consequential given what the invaders had already done with their initial assault.
Thought it hurt her to see how much damage was being done, she consoled herself with the thought that the buildings could be repaired, rebuilt, and were hardly a big deal in the grand scheme of things. As long as her people survived, they would be fine, even if it meant they would have to start all over.
It wouldn’t be the first time, she thought. They could do it.
She grinned at Torbon’s wayward ingenuity as she watched the storm of balborans plow through Main Street, tearing through the enemy soldiers without hesitance or concern for retaliation.
Then she cast her glance toward the barn that held her people, knowing that, any moment from now, Torbon would appear and make his move to free the hostages. She and the crew needed to be ready to help when he did.
That’s when she heard the burst of shuttle engines rattling to their west. She glanced over a shoulder only to see the craft appear almost out of nowhere, dark gray against the glistening blue of the sky, and adjust its course.
It darted over Main Street and spun about one hundred eighty degrees. Taj could hear the whines of its guns spooling up and watched as it let loose on the herd, blasting balborans and ferion spiders indiscriminately.
It was likely the craft was even killing some of its own people in the attack, desperate to bring a halt to the stampede at any cost as it chewed up the road with its guns.
Great bolts of gleaming green energy tore into the animals, and blood and charred viscera exploded, spewing into the sky. Thumps and thuds echoed throughout town as bits of meat and gristle spattered the nearby buildings, coating them in bloody paint and gore.
Within moments, the herd had come to an abrupt halt near the front. The back end pushed in hard, slowing the forward motion and giving the shuttle more and more targets to pile lifeless in town.
The soldiers had finally retreated and scattered back into the cover of the nearby buildings. They provided cover fire from their shelters, helping to halt the stampede and limit further impact.
Taj snarled, knowing their time was coming to a close. She stared at the barn where her people were being held, yet she saw no activity there, nothing that would indicate Torbon had been angling to free their people, and she wondered why not?
Why wasn’t he there? What had happened to him?
A million things churned inside her skull in an instant, none of them good. Her stomach roiled as she stared on. Soldiers still stood their posts about the barn, weapons up and firing into the herd, but there was no other movement to show that Torbon was attempting to break in.
Taj gritted her teeth and did her best to think like Torbon, to determine what he might have in mind, but there was no way she could manage it, her own thoughts too orderly, too composed to mimic the chaos inside Torbon’s brain.
And then she caught the first clue as to his real plan. “Oh, gack.”
There was a muffled thump of engines firing nearby, and Taj scanned the area, catching a glimpse of red-orange as it flashed inside the nearest of the barns, flames sputtering between the slats, charring the wood.
She tapped Lina on the shoulder and asked, “Did you see that?”
The engineer nodded, but by then, everyone had seen it, the back of the barn having caught on fire.
A loud roar erupted, and the doors on the nearest barn burst open, exploding from their hinges to be hurled aside, adding to the maelstrom in the street outside.
The shuttle the enemy had hidden inside the barn broke free of its confines and veered hard upward, rising at almost a perfectly vertical climb. Taj screamed despite herself as she calculated the trajectory and realized where it was angled.
Right toward the other shuttle.
“There’s no w
ay—” she muttered, but there very clearly was.
The damaged shuttle shot upwards like a missile, trailing orange. The other shuttle barely had time to recognize the danger it was in. It wasn’t enough time to react. The shuttles collided with a boom that echoed like thunder over Culvert City.
Lina shrieked, and Cabe pulled her in tight, forcing her head away from the collision so she couldn’t see it. Taj, however, stared on, transfixed.
The front of Torbon’s shuttle crashed into the engines of the other, crippling both ships as steel warped and crumpled as if it were paper. The two shuttles veered off out of control, the enemy’s spinning away to slam into the ground near the balborans pens. It hit with a brutal thud, and the ship imploded, devouring itself from within, great red flares shooting from it and marking its final destination.
The shuttle Torbon piloted fared little better.
It spun away toward the desert, tumbling end over end, little more than a blur against the blue backdrop of the sky. Out amongst the scrub and hard soil, it met the end of its arc and toppled to earth, striking with a sullen thump. An explosion followed.
Taj gave in, at last, and howled, dropping to her knees as a column of black smoke rose up from the crash site.
“Torbon!”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“I have to admit, I did not expect that,” Captain Vort said, staring at the view screen in the small transport he used to return to the ship. Soldiers raced alongside, weapons at the ready.
Commander Dard nodded. “Nor I,” he admitted.
Vort let out a quiet breath and continued to stare at his screen, twin columns of smoke marking where the shuttles had gone down. He’d underestimated the commitment of the Furlorians to their people. Turning loose a stampede of feed creatures to lay ruin to the town and kill his soldiers was a surprise. Worse still, it was an effective one.
“How many men did we lose?”
The commander paused a moment, Vort imagining he was running the numbers on his visor screen, then he grunted. “Fifty-six dead, one-hundred-twelve wounded in some small manner or another,” Dard said. “Most of the deaths and injuries occurred at the onset, when the herd drove through the drill field before the men had identified what was going on, then in town where our forces attempted to identify and nullify the threat. I’ve ordered a field triage to be erected near the primary drill site to tend to them and minimize the drain on the Monger’s resources.”